Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Bastard of Istanbul

Oof. I picked up this book at SeaTac airport, thinking it might help provide some insight during my upcoming trip to Istanbul. This is the author, Elif Shafak's, second book written in English. I'm guessing/hoping her previous books were better-written.

I *am* enjoying the little observations of Istanbul life--how women handle heckling men; how in Turkish one can add an -ist to the end of any noun to come up with a new profession, like "tangerinist" to describe one who sells tangerines; how when you apologize to Allah, you must do it three times: forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

But passages like the following grate:

"It is not a baby!" Zeliha shrugged. "At this stage, I'd rather call it a droplet. That'd be more scientific!" "Scientific! You are not scientific, you are cold-blooded!" Cevriye burst into tears. "Cold-blooded! That's what you are!""Well, I have good news then. I have not killed . . . it--her--whatever!" Zeliha turned toward her sister calmly. "Not that I did not want to. I did! I tried to have the droplet aborted but somehow it did not happen."

Motto

"I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of." --from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

Meet the Travelmonkeys

Well, it's me, JM, my partner-in-crime, M, and our small black pug, Baci. We work in theater; I'm the director, M's the creator and performer, Baci's the little bit of chaos that keeps life interesting. We spend about half the year at home in Brooklyn and the other half on the road. This blog is an attempt to document that half, so we can remember where we've been.

Where We're Going Next

--SEATTLE! (early August with workshops at Seattle Rep)--INDIA!!! (rest of August, with performances and workshops in Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai)--VANCOUVER, B.C.!(performance with PuSh early September)--SEATTLE!(please, sir, no more shows, sir, just rest, sir)--PORTLAND!(for the mighty T:BA Festival, second two weeks of September)--AUSTIN!(shows at the University of Texas at Austin, where my parents met, third week of September)